BOOK NOTES: More book news, Nov. 24, 2012

Jill Hardie will be at the Learned Owl Book Shop (204 N. Main St., Hudson) at 1 p.m. Dec. 1 with her children's book, "The Sparkle Box." Author Jill Hardie, her husband, and their two children began the tradition of placing a Sparkle Box for Jesus under their Christmas tree about six years ago. The first time they opened His gift, the commercialism of the season melted away and they experienced profound peace and happiness. It's Jill's hope that The Sparkle Box book will ignite a new Christmas tradition that helps center Christmas in the true joy of the season. For more information: Learned Owl Book Shop at 330-653-2252.

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Book Sales

• The Books Are Fun Book Fair will be held from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in the Atrium of the Robinson Medical Arts Building, 6847 N. Chestnut St., Ravenna. The sale is open to the public.

• The Friends of Reed Memorial Library will host a children’s book sale Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 at the library, 167 East Main St., Ravenna. Sale times are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 30 and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 1. For more information, call 330-296-2827.

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Comedian/author will visit KSU Bookstore

Comedian Mike Polk Jr., author of “Damn Right I’m from Cleveland,” will visit the Kent State University Bookstore in the Kent Student Center from noon to 2 p.m. Thursday to greet fans and autograph copies of his book. The event is free and open to the public.

Polk’s book is a rustbelt satire lampooning Cleveland’s quirks, including the city’s boundless obsession with disappointing sports teams, its nonstop quest to reinvent its civic image, and a grab-bag collection of odd local celebrities.

Mike Polk Jr. is a Cleveland-based writer and comedian. He graduated from KSU in 2002 with a degree in communications and wrote for the Daily Kent Stater.

For more information about the event, call 330-672-1588. For more information about Polk’s book, visit www.MikePolkJr.com.

For the extended, interactive and searchable version of this list, visit http://books.usatoday.com/list/index

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Books editor: Mary Louise Ruehr; 330-298-1121; Books@recordpub.com.

Visit my blog on books and other fun stuff at http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light

On Twitter: @One4TheBooks

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Book gift guide: 20 picks for the season

By Hillel Italie

Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) -- Louise Erdrich is more than this year's winner of the National Book Award for fiction. She's a bookstore owner and has some ideas for what customers might pick up as holiday gifts.

The four other finalists: "This Is How You Lose Her," by Junot Diaz; "A Hologram for the King," by Dave Eggers; "The Yellow Birds, by Kevin Powers; and "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk," by Ben Fountain.

"This was a tough crowd!" Erdrich, who runs Birchbark Books in Minneapolis, wrote in a recent email about her competition.

Erdrich didn't mention her own novel, "The Round House," but another author-bookseller took care of that. Ann Patchett, the writer who founded Parnassus Books in Nashville, says she has been recommending Erdrich's story of a boy seeking his mother's rapist well before the award was announced in mid-November.

"I read the book really early on, and I've thought about it every single day since," Patchett said. "It's dark, funny, complex and very, very moving."

Patchett had several other suggestions, from Jon Meacham's biography "Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power," a pick she thinks ideal for men; to Maile Maloy's "The Apothecary" for middle schoolers. She also loved J.K. Rowling's first grownup novel, "The Casual Vacancy," a feeling she made clear in October when she interviewed the "Harry Potter" author on stage at Lincoln Center in Manhattan.

Erdrich also cited the illustrated edition of Edmund de Waal's "The Hare With Amber Eyes," writing that "it feels lustrous in hand, orderly, pleasing. This is what a book should be."

Barnes & Noble is suggesting works of humor ("The Onion Book of Known Knowledge"), music (An illustrated Rolling Stones biography to mark the band's 50th anniversary) and history ("Reporting the Revolutionary War").

"This is going to be one of those things adults buy for a kid and end up keeping themselves or giving to other adults, too," Milford says of the Obed book. "It's beautifully illustrated, beautifully written, and just feels like a classic gift book."